Tuesday, 26 December 2017

12 Beers of Christmas - Day Seven - Mills/Oliver's Foxbic

This is a near-accurate representation of my internal monologue as I drank Foxbic. A spontaneously fermented beer made with a traditional turbid mash - i.e. made using the lambic technique, but produced outside of the Lambeek region of Belgium and therefore not referred to as such - the wort is then fermented with apple juice and cider lees from Oliver's. It's as much cider as it is beer, I guess, and a clever idea since sour beers of this sort often recall cider in their dryness and acidity. Foxbic is brilliant because it offers the best parts of both drinks.

The aroma certainly recalls apple juice, with perhaps a touch of floral honey. The initial taste is lemony and tart, before giving way to apple juice and pips before an oaky finish. The aftertaste in incredible; it seems to last minutes at a time, with crisp apple skin drying the palate along with a tingle of sherbet. For all its complexity, Foxbic is unbelievably moreish.